Solidarity Riots in the Diffusion of Collective Action: Doing Historical Research to Develop Theory in Social Psychology

Previous research has demonstrated that collective action events such as riots can influence the occurrence of further collective action events. However, the social influence process underlying such spread of events is unclear. The present paper examines competing explanations using historical case studies of two events in the 1831 wave of ‘reform’ protest and riots. Thick description of the events at Newport and Bath, using archive data, suggests that participants’ psychological closeness to the riot city of Bristol motivated collective efforts to prevent troops from passing through their towns to put down the Bristol riots. The fact that the Newport and Bath collective action events involved personal risk in attempts to support rioters in another location can’t easily be explained in terms of emulation and personal self-interest. Instead, we argue that where there is a common identity between people in different locations, solidarity may be one motive underlying the spread of riots. The discovery of a previously undocumented form of solidarity between participants at riot events contributes to new understandings of the diffusion of collective action in both historical studies and social psychology.